What laptop do you use?

The battery on my laptop is shot. I just got a new job where I'll be writing non-stop throughout the day and need to be somewhat mobile. So, I'm looking to invest in a new laptop. For those of you guys still working in journalism, what kind of laptops do you use? I'm looking for a few suggestions on the cheaper side. Any help is appreciated.

You can get a Dell at Walmart for $500. I'd say spend a little as possible to get the job done, because your laptop will take a beating on the road. I'd also get a backpack that acts as laptop case. More comfortable than slinging a bag over your shoulder.

Get a netbook. Pretty much all brands (HP, Dell, Acer) -- except perhaps Asus -- have big enough keyboards to type on comfortably after a few days of getting used to it. I'm typing on one right now. I got mine for ~$300 online, and it's been awesome. Super-mobile. Plenty of battery life, too.

I think it would work fine for anything you want to do. It's portable enough. Comes with Microsoft Works, so you got a word processor. I've had no problems with it and it seems as fast as any other laptop I've used despite less memory. I've installed iTunes, though I haven't overloaded it with music. The speakers aren't that good, but it sounds fine with headphones and maybe speakers (haven't tried that yet). It's upgradeable to 4GB memory.

I'd put that way over a notebook because you can do much more with it even though it's in the same price range. And Toshiba is one of the better brands for laptops. Pretty much all the reviews for it are very good. A week before Best Buy had a similar Compaq computer on sale for $299. It was a discontinued model and while the reviews were still pretty good, seemed like about 10% of them said the laptop was a dud soon after they opened the box. It would just die for whatever reason. The people could exchange it, but I didn't want to gamble that I'd get one that was good, even if there was a 90% chance.

Don't get one like this if you are into Photoshop or gaming if want a million songs on your computer. But if you want a cheap computer with solid battery life that gives you word processing and web surfing capabilities, this one works very well.

I just got an Acer at Walmart for $299. 2 GB memory. Internal modem. 15" LCD screen. Running better on my home internet than the Apples from the paper ever have (but, then, those may be beginning to show their age.)

If you're not going to ask a lot from your computer other than writing stories and sending them along, this could be all you need. And it's full-sized. I didn't buy a netbook because the keyboard felt tiny to me and this was actually less expensive than some of the netbooks.

Same Walmart was selling Compaqs for $399. The only difference was 1GB more memory. The processing speeds, screen and hard-drive size were all the same and my experience with Compaqs in the past hasn't been positive.

When I got my second Dell laptop last summer, it seemed like Dell and Toshiba kept coming up as the best PCs out there. Thing with Dell is the customer support seems to keep getting worse. Hate trying to explain problems to people in India, but I imagine all companies are probably the same in that regard.